The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has extra rail it want to electrify.
The transit company put out a request for proposals on a design-build contract alongside the Metro-North Railroad Hudson line that, amongst different duties, can have contractors electrify about 11.5 miles of monitor.
The stretch, which lies south of the Croton-Harmon forestall, is the one considered one of 4 tracks alongside the course that doesn’t have a 3rd rail, in line with the solicitation file. A unmarried, diesel-only monitor the place all of the others are electrical is an bizarre association, mentioned Blair Lorenzo, the chief director of the Efficient Transit Alliance, a company that advocates for stepped forward transit within the New York area.
The development web page lies inside what the MTA calls its “third-rail territory,” or 102 miles of Metro-North that experience electrical capability and prolong up the Hudson, New Haven and Harlem traces. In September closing yr, the dep. introduced that new Siemens Mobility Charger locomotives have been beginning to perform alongside the Husdon line in particular. Whilst older fashions at the tracks solely run electrical inside the tunnels of Grand Central Terminal, the Charger locomotives are constructed for long-distance, high-speed electrical go back and forth, Lorenzo mentioned. Finishing this ultimate little bit of electrification at the Hudson line would let the brand new fashions perform diesel-free all of the method to Croton-Harmon.
“At ETA, we consider that electrification of larger New York’s commuter rail community must be a excessive precedence, particularly on high-ridership traces just like the Hudson Line,” Lorenzo mentioned.
The group advocates for catenary as an alternative of third-rail conversions, then again, for the reason that former is inexpensive, more secure to fix, and permits upper most sensible speeds.
The MTA declined to remark in this specific request for proposals or what it way for electrical commuter educate deployment. The company 2025-2029 capital plan notes that the MTA plans to stay purchasing new electric-diesel locomotives for the Metro-North and exchange third-rail this is in deficient situation all through the educate traces.
But even so finishing the electrical educate functions within the house, the contractor will even exchange 4 undergrade bridges and entire 4 rock slope stabilization tasks alongside the Hudson line.
